Can Weinstein's dirty money be made good again?

National Post, 18 October 2017

What is the moral status of money from an immoral source? And if the money is too dirty for Hillary, how does it become clean when given to a charity?

Not to fear — this column is not about Harvey Weinstein’s dirty deeds. It’s about whether money from a dirty man can be made clean.

Since the world came to learn that Hollywood was cool with Weinstein’s sexual predation, there has been a mad scramble by those who took Weinstein’s money to demonstrate that they are not cool with it anymore. Especially now that there are no further donations to be had.

Hillary Clinton, whose 2016 presidential campaign took in $1.4 million from Weinstein, announced that she would give an equivalent sum to charity. The Clinton Foundation, over which Bill Clinton presumably has some say, is going to keep the cash it got from Weinstein. Bill may well feel that Harvey was a bit on the cheap side, given all he did in the White House to normalize workplace sexual harassment. After all, the foundation only got between $100,000 and $250,000, and, way back in 1998, Weinstein threw in a paltry ten grand to Bill’s legal defence fund.